Johann Nikolaus Götz was "ein unfehlbar den ersten Dichtern aller Völker und Zeiten gleichzustellender Liebling der Musen und Grazien" (most certainly a favorite of the muses and graces and equal in rank to the greatest poets of all nations and ages), said Christoph Martin Wieland in attempting to acquire Götz's literary remains for the library of Duke Karl August of Weimar. To Johann Gottfried Herder, "Götzens Gedichte sind eine Dactyliothek, voll lieblicher Bilder, eben so bedeutungsreich als zierlich gefaßt und anmuthik-wechselnd" (Götz's poems are a library of dactyls, full of lovely images, with just as great a wealth of meaning as they are delicately composed and gracefully variable). Herder spoke of the allegories and garlands of poetic flowers in the work of the poet as a treasure to be found in no other language except the...